CHKDSK on boot under Win 7 x64

[Izmi]

Hi there,

I've been running Win 7 (x64 Ultimate, fresh install, free format) on my T400 (model 2767AG8, 4 GB RAM with BIOS ver3.09) for two weeks. Ever since I've installed, a file system check is running every now and then when I reboot the computer. To be precise: It happened 5 times since 2009-10-26). I've the feeling that it is related to standby/suspend/resume but I've nothing to make a good case. But somehow, Windows repeatedly flags the disk as "inconsistent".

Some observations:

• The disk (Seagate Momentus 5400.4) is running fine. SMART values are ok.
• Seagate SeaTools check is fine.
• The CHKDSK runs have so far not found any error.
• Vista Pro SP2 (x32) has been running on the notebook for a year. There haven't been any disk problems.
• The notebook runs very stable.
• I've updated Intel Storage Matrix Manager from version 8.9 to 9.5 and still the problem exists.
• There are other people in the Internet also having this issue but I don't see a clear pattern.
• I see entries of the following kind in the system event log:

Error   11.11.2009 22:41:31    Ntfs    55    (2)

Error  05.11.2009 20:01:15    Disk    11   

Does anyone know what's going on?

[mcc]

Both my W500 and my self-built desktop run checkdisk on almost every other boot. I don't really know why, but I suppose that running chkdsk every now and then can't be a bad thing so I haven't put any effort into figuring out how to stop it.

Both machines run Win7 x64.

[Izmi]

Hi mcc!

Too bad to hear that you are also affected. Do you use a dock? Which BIOS do you use? Do you use standby or hibernate? Have you activated write cache on your system disk? have you disabled flushing the write cache on your system disk?

In my case, I use an advanced mini dock. I use both standby and hibernate. I have activated the write cache on my system disk but not disabled flushing it.

It's strange that there seems to be no clear pattern! And disk errors make me extremely nervous. Last night I let my T400 hibernate. Luckily, there weren't really open documents. This morning, on boot, Windows warned me that it has not been shutdown properly. A normal start with a chkdsk was the consequence, thereby loosing the hibernation data.

Hopefully, some Lenovo employee reads this. This should be escalated to the highest level.

[Izmi]

Mind you. This is most likely not the alleged "Windows 7 showstopper bug" related to chkdsk.

Here some more reports. A synopsis follows.

• Win 7 chkdsk (Win 7 x64 RC, EN)
• Windows 7 - CHKDSK - Probleme mit Dateisystem  (Win 7, GER)
• [Windows 7] chkdsk bei jedem Neustart (Win 7, GER, it was suggested to run "chkdsk c: /x /f /r")
• Erfahrungen Windows 7 RC / auto-chkdsk (Win 7 RC, GER, it was suggested that Win 7 Beta and RC do not like preformatted disks.)
• Chkdsk bei Boot (Win 7 Pro, GER, it is suggested that the USN journal is the cause. Another member in this thread confirms this behavior under X64 EN and under x32 DE. In his case, during normal operation, at some point, "fsutil dirty query C:" reports that the system drive is set dirty. But strangely, only if a night is in between. Reboots on the same day do not yield a dirty disk.)
• Windows 7 - CHKDSK - Probleme mit Dateisystem (Win 7 Prof, GER, running "CHKDSK /f /r /x" did not resolve the issue)
• Festplatte hat Fehler (Win 7 RC, GER)
• Festplatte wegschmeißen? Alles ausprobiert... (Win 7, GER, it was suggested that the OP reformats his disk)
• chkdsk bei jedem start von win 7  (Win 7, GER, it was suggested that the OP disables autocheck in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session Manager and in BootExecute)
• Windows 7 CHKDSK problem (Win 7 Pro, EN, it was suggested that the OP deinstalls Norton 360 and tries to defrag his disk)
• Windows 7 x64 chkdsk every time i start my computer (Win 7 Pro x64, EN, it was suggested that the OP runs a "chkdsk c: /r")
• Corrupt disk - run chkdsk (Win 7 Beta x32, EN)
• Issue with Windows 7 Beta and CHKDSK (Win 7 Beta, EN)
• CHKDSK bei jedem Windows 7-Start (Win 7, GER) 
•  Dual-boot problem (Vista x86 and Windows 7 RC1 x64)... need help!) (Win 7 RC1 x64, EN, it was suggested that creating the partition with Acronis Disk Director 10 is the cause and that reformatting with the partition with Vista does the job)
  

Synopsis: There is no clear pattern. Likely, there are multiple causes. It seems to me that there are three interesting hypotheses (and associated remedies) so far:

1. Your disk might have a bad block. Running chkdsk with the options "/x /f /r" (but know what you do! RTFM!) can address the issue.
2. There might be some strange interaction in the way the system disk was created and Win 7. Reformatting the partition (maybe even repartioning the disk) might help.
3. A various scanner might interact badely with the system. Try installing a different one (MSE?) or reconfigure it.
   

Thanks to help in the German ThinkPad forum, hypothesis 3 got some support. Apparently, Avira is aware that there anti-virus product has issues with Win 7 (see here). According to a Avira forum mod, a possible workaround for x64 is this:

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For Windows 7 on 64 bits, please go to Avira's configuration, tick Expert Mode, Guard, in the "Scan mode" section please check only the "Scan when reading" option and click Apply. Monitor the situation until Monday and tell me if the chkdsk issue persists or not. Thank you in advance.

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Update: The workaround does *not* solve the issue. But virus scanners might, of course, still be a cause of the filesystem state.

[Izmi · Accepted solution]

It turns out that there seems to be a change in the Win 7 kernel / NTFS driver which leads to problems with virus scanners. The good news is that your data is not at risk as Avira reports:

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chkdsk in Windows 7

November 26, 2009, 8:41 am

We got some reports of an issue where using Avira in Windows 7 leads to regular chkdsk-runs upon reboot. Our developers are analysing the problem and now succeeded to reproduce it. We are also in close contact with Microsoft to get to the bottom of this issue. It is not just affecting Avira in Windows 7 though, many other Antivirus products seem to trigger this behavior occasionally too as we learned during the investigation of the problem.

Microsoft introduced a slight change in the NTFS driver in Windows 7. Anyhow, even Microsoft can not pinpoint the problem (which by the way occurs seldom) yet. Update: Meanwhile, we could reproduce the issue and track it down together with Microsoft.

As far as we can tell from the current state of investigation, the problem occurs in special conditions, when an operation is performed upon an already deleted file. This leads to the situation that the NTFS driver / the windows 7 kernel deems the file system as corrupted (which it is not) and sets the dirty-flag of the NTFS partition. This in turn leads to the chkdsk-run on the next start of the system. In previous versions of the windows kernel, the operating system just returned an error.

We found a workaround for this issue. A hotfix is currently being tested and gets hopefully shipped next week as update, if there are no issues showing up in Quality Assurance. The driver avgntflt.sys in version 9.0.3.17 will fix this issue then. We will continue to analyse this issue together with Microsoft as we need to understand the problem correctly in-depth to come up with a better solution; maybe even a Windows Update will be necessary.

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